Thinking Twice About "Creativity"

In contrast, someone like Sam Walton could build a commercial empire by just going out and looking for ideas. The retail icon had a career-long habit of prowling for ideas in other people's stores, taking notes in a blue spiral notebook. He gladly conceded that all the ideas tried at Wal-Mart, such as how and where to display items, were copied from other stores.

"You can learn from anybody," Walton wrote in his autobiography. "I probably learned the most by studying what my competitor was doing across the street."

Walton did not buy into the notion that the only great idea is a pristinely original one. He understood that the best business ideas are already out there, waiting to be spotted and then shaped into an innovation. These ideas do not spring necessarily from innate creativity or from the minds of brilliant people. Rather, they come to those who are in the habit of looking for such ideas—all around them, all the time.

Andy Boynton is Dean of the Carroll School of Management at Boston College and coauthor, with Bill Fischer, of The Idea Hunter: How to Find the Best Ideas and Make Them Happen (Jossey-Bass), written with journalist William Bole.